ROBOT (TAKUJI KOGO + JOHN MILLER)

ROBOT began as a band for personals ads and now produces songs based on texts from a wide range of sources.
In 1998 Miller was one of Candy Factory's first guest artists in the original Yokohama gallery.
Since then he has collaborated with Kogo on various works under the rubric Candy Factory Projects.

Their virtual band "ROBOT" produces songs whose lyrics derive from personal ads found online or in newspapers and, more recently, from various other sources. All of Robot's music is synthetic, including the vocals.

A promotional video clip for a shuttered microchip plant in Scotland, set to the traditional Korean song Arirang.

The large-scale plant was originally built by Hyundai in 1996, in Halbeath, a village located between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Then, in the wake of the 1997 Asian monetary crisis, the South Korean company aborted the project before production could begin. The U.S. company Motorola bought the mothballed factory in 2000, but shortly thereafter it also withdrew support, and the brand-new 150-acre facility never produced a microchip.

Music : "Arirang," 1946 From "Arirang," Synnara Music Co. Ltd. SYC-0001, 1991 Shim Yeun-ok is accompanied by the Soerabol Orchestra Arrangement by Lee Jae-ho
"Arirang," the iconic, traditional Korean song of love and heartbreak, has been played and sung by musicians throughout Korea's modern history to express memory, sorrow, pride, and propaganda. The song, a national symbol for both North and South Korea, originated, some say, during the Chosun Dynasty (1392-1910); others say it has existed since the Shilla Dynasty, more than 1,000 years ago. In 1926, "Arirang" became a hit as the theme song of the first Korean movie of the same title, which depicted the sorrow of Koreans living under Japanese rule. Ironically, even Japanese pop singers, beginning in the 1930s, created their own arrangements of the song. During the Korean War (1950-53), an American turned "Arirang" into a march to celebrate the heroism of the American-led United Nations forces. In 1985, the song was sung in Pyongyang by an art troupe from Seoul during a reunion of families separated since the Korean War. And in 2002, North Korea organized the Arirang Festival of gymnastics and art featuring 10,000 performers, including students and young children, to celebrate the birthday of the nation's founder Kim Il-sung. It was also this secretive and cash-strapped country's first festival seeking to promote tourism and develop a new source of foreign currency. In the South, these days, "Arirang" is an unofficial national anthem that performers arrange into countless melodic or lyrical versions played in any kind of mode: pop, rock, folk, jazz, symphonic, even hip-hop.

Transactions of military land in Okinawa are completely different from regular transactions of real estate. The market price deals only with the ratio of the land's annual rent without concerning the conditions of the land or its extent, because the purpose of the buyers is only income from the rent. And the ratio remains higher where there is uncertainty of the land ever being returned by US forces. About 10% of the main island of the Okinawa islands has been covered by U.S military bases since 1972 when the United States returning Okinawa to Japan retained conditional rights to all U.S. military installations. The Japanese government rents the property from the landowners lending it to the U.S. forces. Owning Okinawa "military ground" remains a highly lucrative investment guaranteed by the Japanese government.

This video is made using an online video clip of an interior from the Sigonella U.S military base housing, Sicily uploaded by a U.S military family together with outside views of two identical base housings estates called Marinai and Mineo at Sigonella using online map service.
The U.S base canceled the lease contract for the Mineo housing in 2011 and since then the apartments have been transformed into a refugee detention center ( C.A.R.A. di Mineo ) used mainly for Middle Eastern and African refugees, many of which have arrive via the coast of Sicily or Lampedusa island.
A printed web page with a warning message about a riot by refugees at Mineo housing written by a PR officer for the Sigonella U.S base community including their comments.

保見 / HOMI

A brand new billboard by the Emirates airline company on the road leading up to the Homi Public Housing Estate known as housing the largest Brazilian community in Toyota city, Aichi prefecture in 2009. The billboard announces a free bus connection from Nagoya for the flight from Osaka to Sao Paulo via Dubai. The advert is only written in Portuguese.

At the end of 1988, after receiving the news of the Emperor Showa Hirohito's collapse in September until his death in January 1989, the Japanese network TV refrained from showing some advertisements and entertainment programs. During those four months the bridge in front of the main gate of the Emperors Palace in Tokyo was continuously broadcast at night together with announcements of the Emperors medical condition.

The work mimics the same view from the live broadcast with " Day for night" the post production technique also known as " American night "

Takuji Kogo + Keiichi Miyagawa

House Tour On-base housing Kadena AB Okinawa

Kadena Air Base (嘉手納飛行場) is a United States Air Force base in the towns of Kadena and Chatan and the city of Okinawa, Japan.
Kadena Air Base is home to the USAF's 18th Wing, the 353d Special Operations Group, reconnaissance units, 1st Battalion, 1st Air Defense Artillery, and a variety of associated units.
Over 20,000 American service members, family members, and Japanese employees live or work aboard Kadena Air Base. It is the largest and most active US Air Force base in the Far East.

The Kitakyushu Biennial for the grand opening exhibition at the newly established art space ZK/U
Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik in Berlin, the former Railway Depot Moabit.

The exhibition presents the landscapes of a fabricated idea of the nation state where cultural identities have become defunct or conflictual, landscapes located on the back waters of the global economy covering such subjects as tourism on the Korean North-South divide, large scale Sicilian cherry tomato production maintained by Romanian and Tunisian migrant workers, a shopping mall in Singapore filled with foreign maids agencies or the public housing estates built around Toyota city which are today the home of many Japanese descendants from south America.

*CANDY FACTORY PROJECTS also transforms fragments of information and media into original musical projects, text messages sung by synthetic voices taken from scam messages and junk mails or personal ads from online dating sites, propaganda posters, or the transactions for land purchase for the American military bases on Okinawa and re-advertising them as promotional video clips at the site.

Vittoria is situated in the Province of Ragusa on Sicily. It is a center for cherry tomato production. Spread along a 100 km stretch of coast covered with sheet-plastic greenhouses.

Developments in industrial agriculture have made it possible to produce vegetables throughout the year. The most successful producers are able to ceaselessly cultivate high quality organic tomatoes and vegetables in large scale greenhouse complexes and distribute them all over Europe.
This industrialized system has enabled seasonal migrant tomato pickers from Tunisia to stay and work all year round. During the 1980's and 90's low-cost labour played an important part in the growth of the industry.

In between the many greenhouses are small brick buildings. These are homes to the migrant tomato pickers. They look like the stereotypical huts seen beside meadows in Sicily or found on the locations of spaghetti western films. But today they adorn satellite dishes.

However in recent years many of the Tunisian pickers have left the plantation huts and moved to apartments in the town. Some of them belong to the third generation of migrants. Some are involved in the recruitment of new laborers to the farms. They are often seen at the Ferry Port in Palermo welcoming new recruits and their families from Tunisia.

Today many migrant tomato pickers from the former eastern block countries have come for work at the plantations. These are mainly Romanians, but also some Poles, Albanians and Ukrainians. Many of which are no longer seen as illegal due to the expansion of the European Union*.

Regulations for working conditions on the plantations are often neglected. For example migrant workers usually work on 5 month seasonal contracts but stay on for another 3 months without pay, receiving unemployment benefit from the Italian government instead. Also the regulations on working hours are easily ignored since the pickers often live on site, making it possible to work day and night.

The black labour market has flourished due to the hard competition between the Tunisian and Romanian workers. This can be seen at the town square early each morning when migrant workers without contracts, standing in ethnic groups, wait to be picked up by farmers for day work.

Nearby there is a huge wholesale vegetable market which provides some of the best quality tomatoes in Europe. The area around Vittoria functions as one giant vegetable factory. Trailers and trucks owned by global distribution companies are continuously seen coming and going day and night.

*The Schengen Agreement was extended to include Romania and Bulgaria in 2007 and has gradually been disassembling internal borders and checkpoints.

Farms and villages around Sanrizuka in Narita city were demolished by the Japanese government in order to build New Tokyo International Airport. There were long-standing protests by local farmers and student radicals during the1960s and 70s and is still under dispute today.

Some of the activists acquired and shared a small plot of land (One -tsubo / about 3.3m² ) in protest of the eviction. Some established themselves as farmers, living inside of the airport compound.

The Airport was finally opened in 1978. The local community was destroyed after a long struggle and many of villagers left. There were internal disputes between opposition groups of radicals and villagers during 1980's.

Today there are still some pending court cases on land right issues left to be resolved. Three of the farms were kept running inside of the Airport stopping the expansion plan. Since its opening, the use of the airport has been restricted to daytime traffic only due to noise-pollution effecting the surrounding residential area. Narita airport can be seen as an example of a badly implemented national development strategy, and deemed a failure. Its original function as an international airport for Tokyo has been partially re-taken by Tokyo Haneda airport.

Between 1967 to 1974 the documentary filmmaker Shinsuke Ogawa and his crew lived with the farmers of Sanrizuka and produced a series of seven films documenting the struggle and the everyday life of the village.
In 1971 three policeman were killed during a demonstration about the enforced acquisition of the land for the airport construction. "Narita: Heta Village" documents the village after the incident.
The Director states at the beginning of the film that many police entered the village upsetting and agitated the villagers in order to break-up the opposition factions which consisted of both protesters and members of the local community. The film focuses on the villagers themselves, their personal history and their thoughts on the struggle.

( A City Planner, former C.E.O. of The Housing and Development Board, Singapore1970-80s)
インタヴュー／リュー・タイカー 都市プランナー、元シンガポール都市計画局C.E.O
More than 85% of the population of Singapore live in Public housing organized by the government.
The ownership of the flat is limited to 100 years and is referred to as the land title system.
シンガポールでは国民の85％が政府の運営管理する公共住宅で暮らしている。
ランドタイトルというシステムに基づいた法律で部屋の所有権は100年間に限定されている。

*CANDY FACTORY PROJECTS have opened abandoned former JP office building in public at the Moji port through the first Kitakyushu Biennial 2007 and the second in 2009.
It built in 1937 as for the Moji Branch for Mitsui & Co., Ltd., one of the largest general trading companies in Japan since the Edo period and dissolved by the order of GHQ after the end of World War 2.

In the beginning the building was the tallest building and became a landmark of Moji Port, located in the northern part of Kyushu, one of the main trade port in Japan close to Asian countries and a naval port since the Sino-Japanese War to World War 2.
The Building became the main office for Japanese National Railways Kyushu after the World War 2. However, the company moved the office into Fukuoka city in 2001 and it had been abandoned since then in the middle of tourist spot surrounded by other old western style buildings.

This North Korean movie is nearly 20 hours long. The plot, based loosely on both fictional and real characters and events, revolves around North Korean spy operations in Seoul during the Korean War. The film, which was obtained and analyzed in the 1990s by the U.S. Department of Defense / CIA, confirmed the presence of American military deserters living in North Korea. The role of Dr. Kelton, the mastermind of the Korean War, is played by the American defector, Charles "Super" Jenkins.

ROUTE 189 also known as American Street.
It's only about 400 meters long situated in front of the U.S Marine Corps Iwakuni Air Station at Iwakuni city Yamaguchi prefecture.

U.S Marine Corps Iwakuni Air Station will soon be a largest U.S military base in the mainland in Japan.
The current acreage is 575 ha. The area is expected to expand to 790 ha in the next few years.
The Japanese government has been conducting a 160 billion yen land reclamation project for 215 ha since 1997.

The local government has also subsidized many of the City's facilities such as roads and the new city hall.
The economy in the city is largely sustained by these constructions.
Each house near the base has been provided with soundproofing and air-conditioning for the noise pollution from military training.
The base expanded through the Korean War to the Vietnam War and the red light district has been developing around the road ever since.

In 1955, 2500 prostitutes for American soldiers called "Only" were working there. Many of the sex crimes by US marines have been taking place around this street.
11 murder cases by U.S soldiers since 1955 which include vicious crimes such as : a woman who was raped and murdered using a screwdriver and a hammer in her abdomen. Another abandoned dead body was found with breasts and genital organs cut.

However compared to similar murder cases by U.S soldiers in Okinawa or South Korea, these particular crimes were never reported by the main media in Japan.

"Gulliver's Kingdom" is a failed theme park.
It opened in 1997 and was shut down in October 2001.
It was located in Kamikuishiki village Yamanashi Prefecture at the foot of Mount Fuji.
The village gained notoriety in the mid-1990s as the cult terrorist group Aum's main base,
where it produced the chemical Sarin.

The painting by the Japanese artist Takeo Yamaguchi (1902-1983) was made in 1954.
It shows the abstracted Japanese word for " Work".
It was presented as an example of modernist Japanese painting in the late 50's at the
Venice Biennial and the Sao Paolo Biennial.
However since the 1960's the painting was forgotten and turned up hanging in a staircase
in the old office building of the Kanebo Hofu Factory
(one of the largest and oldest chemical fiber mill plants in Japan, founded in 1935 at
Hofu, Yamaguchi. )

This painting was uncovered with this project and was displayed once more at the
Yamaguchi prefecture museum in 2003 together with a digital projection of the defunct
factory housing and the transcription of a song made for the factory celebrations by the workers.
The factory was shut down in 2004 due to the owner company's bankruptcy.

Lyrics ( Texts on the movie)
With the long shadow of lapis lazuli color.
The Sun rises up on the Katumaga Bay.
The light of Shuho forever.
Delightfully honestly and vigorously with hope let us go forward.
Looking upon *the 3-S mind from Kanegafuchi
Ah Kanebo My Hofu city Succeeding toward shining great business.
To find a guide to tomorrow by taking our lessons from the past.
Fulfilling our mission here.
We compete at all times
Let us go forward more powerfully

*The 3-S mind from Kanegafuchi with proud Ah Kanebo My Hofu city

*3-S = Speed, Service ,Saving
( A slogan for the factory workers since after the W.W 2.)

NUNOTANI BLDG. built in 1991 at EDOGAWA TOKYO,
Architect: Peter Eisenman and Zenidaka corporation.
Built as the main office building of the design company NUNOTANI corporation's Tokyo branch.
However the building's function soon turned into a warehouse.
The NUNOTANI corporation went bankrupt in 2000.
The administration of property Osaka district court has had the building and the site up for sale since 2000.

A company " Life support" finally bought the dilapidated building at an auction in 2003
converted the building into the old-age peoples home.

*CANDY FACTORY PROJECTS
is a platform for
collaborative art projects directed by TAKUJI KOGO,
was
originally set up as an exhibition space housed in
a former candy factory in Yokohama, Japan in 1998.
Since 2001, *CANDY FACTORY PROJECTS has been constantly
relocating its curatorial office into different institutions
around the world,
organizing exhibitions, publications and web projects.